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Yes I did. Still in the testing stage. Are you the negative one from the last time around? If you are your pessimistic attitude/opinion isn't really needed as you were just a &*^% stirrer....the ends are not left open because the company wants them closed for cosmetic reasons. Dave

Originally Posted by Fishy Jim

You made a hundred of these 6 months back, and now you've got R&D problems?

I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here but if you used 1/8 steel diamond plate it would add about $8.25 retail or about 1/2 that your cost to the unit. 1 sheet 4x8 @ .85 pound = $140 & you"ll get 288 pcs from it. That's 50 cents each cost or 75 cents retail. Total time including shearing & welding would be 5 minutes (in quantity less time)tops @ $90 per hour = $7.50 I just don't see any other way to make it "bullet proof" besides welding on a cap. I really hope you can find an alternative but I can't come up with one that is cheaper & solid.

the ends are not left open because the company wants them closed for cosmetic reasons.

IMHO:
It's for a SWAT team, they're carrying guns and wearing bullet proof vests. They do their job in a HIGH stress environment. What do they care about cosmetics? I sounds like the politicians have their finger in this and want it PRETTY.

I'll bet the ones asking for the cap, didn't ask the guys using it, if it needs to be capped.

Why dont you just use a nice thick piece of steel like whats on the other end? I realize that the business end has a pry tool on it but why not just have a piece of flat stock welded on the same way. It would add a bit a weight but not so much as filling the tube with shot...

At the risk of helping this guy, it would be a poor decision to add excess mass so far away from the working end of the ram. Since straight thrusting (traditional battering) isn't the tools primary objective (as indicated by the swiss army knife-esque video), the addition of mass so far away from the working end, will not benefit the tools function, but will increase the fatigue on the troop carrying it.

There's a reason maul hammers don't have heavy handles - the added mass is in the wrong spot.

Were it just a traditional battering ram, the mass wouldn't matter where it was located.

Something else to consider with this things design is that the actual force changes with acceleration, just as much as it does with mass. Look at ballistics of bullets. You can get the same ft-lbs out of a smaller bullet at a higher speed. It's easier for a man to accelerate a lighter object than a heavy one (baseball bats would be a prime example). Maybe your research should be focused on the practical effects of being able to swing a lighter boot - oops, you already made 100 heavy ones.

Syncrowave 250DX
Invison 354MP
XR Control and 30AAirco MED20 feederThermal Dynamics Cutmaster 81Smith O/A rigAnd more machinery than you can shake a 7018 rod at